Who Rules the Night?
by Jarreditis
Summary: Batman, Dark Knight and protector of Gotham. Sothil, Night lord and ravager of worlds. What happens when a duel between psykers goes awry and brings these two together? Hero or villain? Man or Astartes? Hero or Heretic? Who truly rules the night?
1. Chapter 1

Hi this is as far as I know the only crossover involving Batman Beyond and Warhammer, so I hope I do both sides justice in this fic. This whole idea popped in my head when my friend Campion Sayn was talking Batman while I had warhammer 40k on the brain. I'd like to apologize for this but the Batman part will not be coming in until chapter two, the children will just have to be patient.

I do not own any part of warhammer or Batman Beyond, and seek no monetary gain, only to respect both sides

Location: Cordatus III

Planetary Hour: 1400 hours

This planet had once been a utopia, where the seasons seemed to only need spring and summer. Trees were green year-long; harvests were collected monthly world-wide, and all the indigenous wildlife had evolved to become herbivores, making it an excellent farm world for the colonists from the Imperium. Cordatus III was truly a wonderful place to live. Poverty levels were nonexistent and to find a corrupt official was among the hardest things to do on Cordatus III….. until fate felt in need of a good laugh.

An Ork fleet under the command of Warboss Skull Spika had once owned that planet and had finally re-earned enough of his power to go back to war once more. Down they fell upon the poor unsuspecting planet in a tide of scrap and fire, landing in their millions and slaughtering everything with a pulse on-sight, Skull Spika at the front with his axe, "Clanky Cleaver". The horror and depravities that followed the first days of invasion were truly terrible. Oh but that was not the end of it, for not only was the planet desired for vengeance, no, it was wanted for an even darker purpose. It's souls.

Not ten minutes before the Ork warships entered the system, another ship, hidden within a field of shadow generated by no natural occurrence had already touched down upon the world's surface in the fringes of a small forest, 20 miles from a nearby sub-hive city and a Mechanicus research facility. The shadows of the night dimmed even more as the ship's shadow-field opened partially, and a landing ramp spat forth to spear the ground with a silent hiss.

Down that ramp walked a monumental figure, he stood at a height 3 feet above the tallest man, garbed in armor as dark and blue as an ocean in the blackest night, his armor was the weight of a small car yet he walked with the powerful grace of a jungle cat, his eyes shone out into the night in crimson light, his face was long and gaunt, his hair as black as pure ebony, the armor he wore was edged in gold, his helm, held in the crook of his arm had the wings of a bat furled to straight points back and forth, the only other decoration was the fanged skull set in his left pauldron, blood-red wings painted to sprout from it's sides. He was given many names, all spreading fear in different parts of the galaxy, Man Hunter, Soul Render, Astartes, Heretic, Destroyer of worlds, but his true name, now and forever more was to be, Sothil, Night Lord.

This world seems rife with life, he thought turning his head from side to side surveying the area. With a fanged grin to put his chapter's symbol to shame he strode onto the land with one thought…. How fun will it be to change that?

Cordatus III during the day was wreathed in blood and fire, the Orks acting as a relentless war machine, of the few bastions holding regiments of the Imperial Guard that were scattered across the world's surface, most were quickly overrun and their inhabitants butchered by the barbaric aliens. Their forces had divided into two fronts, one led by Skull Spika and the other lead by his trusted second, the Weirdboy known as Bone Slima. Either side of the planet was rife with slaughter and conflict in the few areas that Imperial forces still held sway.

When night fell, the music took a turn to a more sinister tune. Entire villages and compounds were wiped out, their bodies left in the streets, ripped apart or left in macabre poses as though they were going through their daily routines. These occurrences were usually found by Bone Slima's Orks, and after every night their findings became more and more frequent. Some of the more curious snotlings found that in one of the villages that the corpses with lasguns hadn't even gotten a shot off before being mutilated. All this really did was frustrate the Orks, they wanted a fight, but all they could find were dead enemies, noting live enough to hit back.

As the evening sun descended over Bone Slima's camp that day, a chill ran through the forest. Sure the many bonfires burned bright and lively, and they had killed a few of the humies with their flash guns, the boys should've been whoop'n and holler'n thought Bone Slima. But even he felt the chill, and with all his brain's might, (which was a lot since it practically burst from his skull every few hours if not used) he didn't know why. He even thought of making a few hundred more stand guard that night. It was only after his brain had just allowed him sleep, which he figured out what caused the chill, and it came in the form of an unearthly chorus of shrieks like a bat out of hell.

Sothil slashed his sword through another of the foul xenos and charged into another, cutting it in twain with ease. The sword surged with energy as it tasted the alien's blood, the daemon, Seelis that was bound within was hungry this night and with every kill its hunger grew, manifesting as a green glow that allowed it to slice through armor and flesh alike with as much effort as cutting had grown bored with killing mere peasants and Guardsmen, he wanted a challenge, something to make him truly let loose upon his foe, if these Orks were up to the task then so be it.

"My Lord!" called captain Herrig over the vox, captain of Sothil's Raptor squads, "these beasts make wonderful prey, we should hunt them more often!" Sothil laughed at this as he gutted another Nob and thought on his captain's words. How like a Slaaneshi to want more with so much already laid out before him.

"Slay your fill old friend," Sothil replied, kicking the corpse from the blade." if you even have one that is." Sothil turned seeking another foe to step forth from the savage, green tide before him when another dark plated form stepped beside him, causing Sothil to flinch inwardly. Damn Sorcerer, he thought, always sneaking about.

The Night Lords had never really allowed themselves to embrace the gods of the Warp. Sothil was considered open minded, letting a few of his warriors to worship singular gods, but like any of the Night Haunter's children, he still had an innate dislike of them. But he wasn't foolish enough to man a ship without at least a little protection from that which he detested, and that protection was Allenes, Sorcerer of the Night Lord ship, Sanguine Blessing.

"Lord Sothil." the psyker said with a bow of his silver plated head. His armor was a little different from the others, it still bore the winged skull of the legion on it's right pauldron, but it writhed with snake-like shadows, from the waist down robes made from daemon skin lapped in the breeze, and his helm was a plain silver mask with only two eyeholes to mark it's surface, and hundreds of little wires flowed back from the mask in a parody of dreadlocks or braided corn rows. Allenes was armed with a curved power sword with the fangs of a Tzeentch screamer embedded along the edge near the tip, a silver staff with a mutant's head at the top, and a gold plated plasma pistol belted at his waist.

"What do you want, Sorcerer?" barked Sothil at the irritant. Sorcerers were to stay at the back; they had no place at the front lines!

"I realize that you are busy my liege." He apologized in that same sepulchral tone he used, "but I felt you should know that there is a much larger threat than these peons." As if to emphasize his point he whipped out his sword to cut an Ork's throat and re-sheathed it in a moment's span without even breaking eye contact with his lord.

Maybe he was useful after all, mused Sothil. "What do you mean, 'larger threat'? I am no Tzeentchian, Sorcerer, do not speak in riddles when you address me!"

Allenes pointed his staff to a nearby hill where a large tent had been set up, colored in the all too familiar checkered colrs of Skull Spika's army. "I detect a strange flow of the aether pulled in that area. I believe the leader of these rag-tag xenos to be hiding there." Allenes shrugged and added, "That and I believe I saw some Nobs head up there with a few Cans."

Sothil mulled this over then called Herrig to meet him near the hill's base, it was unwise to keep tasty tidbits like a skilled enemy to yourself without letting a Slaaneshi get a cut of it for himself first. They always get too moody after finding out.


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own or take profit from Batman Beyond or Warhammer 40k I'm only a fan seeking to give tribute

Herrig gave a shriek to put a Fury to shame as he rocketed into the Ork Kan. Digging his lower talons into it's rough-shod surface, he gave another exultant scream and began wrenching the small view hole open with his oversized lightning claws. The horrified pilot of the clanking monstrosity did only as it's mossy brain could and struck it's own crackling claws at his attacker. Herrig dodged each clumsy strike with ease and laughed as he watched as it damaged itself worse than he could, then jammed a krak grenade into the pilot's screaming mouth and jetted away searching for new prey alongside his many flying brothers.

Sothil watched Herrig fly away as the kan went up in flames, marveling at how such a warp addled creature could be so useful. "The gods work in mysterious ways." He sighed as he crushed the Ork Nob's head beneath his clawed ceramite boot and raised his saw toothed daemon blade in challenge to the next braying creature charging towards him. Sothil's guards stepped forward but their lord bade them back, "let me enjoy myself a little longer, Allenes, where's that threat you promised me?" He parried it's first clumsy swing and bisected it's skull with the next lightning strike. "Allenes! Do not make me repeat myself!" The Chaos Lord turned angrily to his reluctant second in command and found he wasn't there. "Where did that swine go?"

Bone Slima had been watching the proceedings from above with his favored subjects, grinding his rotted tusks the entire time. From out of nowhere, at lest 30 flying humies had flown straight to the middle of his boys and laid into them, like a choppa to a snotling! Then from the left flank 20 more humies charged in shrieking like banshees and opened fire. And if all this wasn't bad enough for past 5 minutes he started getting a wicked 'ead ache that kept getting worse. "I see you are enjoying my Lord's handiwork shaman." Bone Slima turned to the humie with the fancy armor with a sneer, and judged that due to the lightning around it's hands, it knew about the big green too. Slima's retinue looked at it's fancy armor and just laughed and let loose their dakka at 'im. The strange humie raised it's silver chased hands and deflected every shot before unleashing the warp within and fried his mates with lightning and turned on their leader. Bone Slima cracked his neck, raised his own crackling staff, "Bring it!"

Herrig landed alongside Sothil, maliciously making sure to do so with loudest crunch in a pile or corpses. "My lord, I swept over the area, and so have my brethren, besides the scattered remnants of the cowardly xenos, we found nothing, allenes is nowhe-.." Irony at that moment decided to rear it's none too handsome head. From atop a shoddy cast-iron parapet, a swirling mass of blue and green energy exploded outwards. What first looked like a simple explosion, changed quickly into a mass of aetheric tentacles, whipping around in a frenzied mass, all that they touched simply disappeared in a clean cut screech, either of metal, or the pain of a being having it's atoms wrenched apart. 3 aetheric appendages swept down and cut through the shoddy support strutsforcing it to fall towards the two Night Lords and 3 of Sothil's body guards. Sothil laughed walking forward and said "I'm guessing that's him!"

Bone Slima stood, dusting off his rags and looked around fro the ponce he'd just schooled in the way of the Big Green and grew confused, all around were huge towers of lights and weird trukks were skimming through the air. His last grunted words were a confused "What in Gork's name is dis?" Before a Gotham City police cruiser cracked off his bulbous head and tumbled through the pollution soaked air into bounce of 3 more flying vehicles and finally in the bushes of Gotham City Park.

One special cruiser just happened to be near this incident, one sleek black cruiser, one that had spent it's entire making in service to it's city. It's occupant, had just recently started on that duty. "Wayne, something just dropped on the Carter building" the driver clad in black waited for a reply. He didn't wait long before a strong voice replied. "Check it out Terry, can't have you go home early." Terry McGinnis sighed and gunned the engine. "Wouldn't want that, how bad could it be?"


	3. Chapter 3

I do not obtain any monetary gain from Warhammer 40k or Batman beyond, neither do I own them I merely seek to do tribute

Batman jumped down from the Batmobile and began scanning the area. All around the rooftop were scattered mounds of scrap iron and other chunks of metal, some of them seemed to have a checkered design painted on them but nothing else seemed recognizable. Terry picked up a jagged piece of metal that seemed to resemble a skull and tapped the receiver on his ear. "Wayne, does this look familiar? It may be some gang symbol", "One moment Terry I'm running it through the computer now." Terry clicked the receiver again and continued searching the rooftop, when he noticed a parked police cruiser behind one of the larger mounds.

Batman quickly put his back to a nearby air conditioning duct and hit the receiver. "Frak,.. Wayne, looks like one of Gordan's people is here already, what should I do?" Terry scanned around looking for the officer, hoping he hadn't been spotted. "That is a complication, but see what you can find out before heading back, Gordon can be pretty forgiving…from time to time." Wayne replied before continuing, "That skull isn't yielding any useful results, I keep getting some vague references to something called GW but it's useless." As Wayne talked Terry moved closer to the cruiser, narrowing his eyes, there was something pooling towards the back, and a leg poked out from behind the cruiser and laying in the pool. With a start Terry rushed around the vehicle and choked back bile.

The body before him, if it could be called a body anymore, was a mess. Something had mutilated the poor officer, his jaw was hanging off by a string of sinew, and his ribcage had been ripped out like some perverse parody of wings, "Terry.." The officer's heart had been crushed to a lump of meat, and his eyes plucked leaving accusing black holes to stare at the Dark Knight, and… "TERRY!" Bruce's voice cut through Terry's macabre state of mind and he instantly turned and retched over the balcony to his right. "Terry, everything is alright, just breathe and calm down." Bruce's stern voice helped focus Batman's mind as he wiped the remains of his lunch from his face. "Who ever did that is still close by, be on your guard." Batman pulled out a batarang and moved cautiously through the scrap metal mounds.

"What makes you thing this is a who and not a what?" McGinnis whispered over the com, switching to infrared vision. "Only people can be that cruel." was Bruce's answer. Something crashed to the ground in clinking metal 20 feet to Terry's right; Batman switched on his cloaking mode and went to investigate.

Sothil woke up to a comfortable darkness, the few tons of metal trying to crush him however was not so comforting. Using his gene and armor enhanced strength; he dug his way out and looked out at his new surroundings. All around were vast towers of lights and dark stone, vast boards of neon light spoke in low gothic of strange things and objects, vast swarms of small flying ships zipped through the sky making unbearable honking noises. Sothil was curious as to what flew these things and looking down from the balcony he saw many scurrying figures on the streets below and nodded his helmed head in understanding. "Ahh, a hive world, I wonder which sector I'm in? Cordatus? Maybe Gamma 617?" Behind him came animal growls and wrenching metal, turning he saw Herrig pull himself from the remains of the Ork defense tower cursing and using his talons to shred the pig-iron covering him. "Welcome Herrig, about time you woke up."

Batman stared in disbelief at the figures at the balcony, the one with wings sprouting from it's helmet stood at maybe 8 or 9 feet tall, and was at least 3 times as wide as Terry, it's armor was blue near black and trimmed in gold, the faceplate of it's helmet resembled a fanged skull, with both incisors capped in gold, like the faceplate, the winged skull emblem on it's oversized shoulder plate stared out in a near hungry way and Terry felt forced to turn to the other one at that point. Though it crouched like some grotesque gargoyle, Terry could tell that if it stood, it would be around the same height and size of the other one, though slimmer, the large clunky backpack it wore reminded Terry of furled wings ready and eager to be put to flight, it's helm was a white, grilled mask of anger with strange words carved into it in swirling, crude script. The larger one kept an oversized pistol at it's waist in a holster made of human skin, and a large chainsaw-like sword that bled a black and red smoke. The other's weapons were more fitted to their user, large sickle bladed claws that crackled with lightning and seemingly never stopped flexing and re-flexing.

"You can't hide from the eyes of the warp little sneak." Batman snapped around to have a blue painted fist smash him from his feet and into a mound of scrap metal. Gritting his teeth, he got up to see another of the giants. It wore baroque armor with skulls and tentacles worked into it's design with a fogging, dragon-headed backpack, it wore a silver mask with snaking wires sprouting from the back, some broken and crackling, and robes of scaled skin from the waist down. This one, unlike the others was wounded, scratches had been gouged into the ceramite, and spots looked as though they had melted and a large section of his waist had been seemingly ripped out and left to bleed sluggishly.

Leaning heavily on his skull topped staff; Allenes pulled a large golden pistol and fired a searing blast of blue plasma. Batman quickly dodged and let the shot melt into the scrap iron, and threw his batarang which lodged deep into the wounded giants right shoulder plate. Allenes continued firing with a malicious glee, forcing Batman to jump, roll and dodge like an acrobat, Terry pulled out some smoke pellets and tossed them into his foe's mask, fired his rocket boots and thundered both fists right into the psyker's waist. His left fist rammed into the wound and the rest of him felt like he'd rammed into a truck. As Batman fell back to the concrete, Allenes roared in pain staggering back holding his wound and made to smash Batman's skull with and overhead strike of his staff.

The staff smashed though concrete as Batman rolled away only to stop short as his back hit the fire escape door. Herrig screeched, activated his jump pack and charged through the sky, Batman tossed a flash bomb as he jumped away on his own jets, and jerked his head away as the flying behemoth was blinded and ripped through the stairwell door, and concrete walls to stop at the police cruiser cursing and howling death threats as he blinked away his blindness. Batman jinked in the air as a bullet the size of a mortar round whizzed by his head. Sothil was calmly and patiently firing his bolt pistol at the flying not-so-caped-crusader. Terry fired some batarangs from mid-air toward his foe, but they were quickly vaporized by the giant's masterful shots.

Just then six police cruisers came in with wailing sirens and surrounded the top of the building, weapons trained on the combatants. The lead car with a bull horn issued orders to the giants below, "This is the Gotham City Police Department! You are in violation of the law, place your weapons on the ground and surrender immediately!" Sothil looked up at these new challengers with some amusement, "Ahh PDF. Do you truly expect an Astartes to surrender to mere mortals so easily?" was his scratchy, vox amplified response, followed by his pistol firing and crumpling the back engine of the lead cruiser before it exploded and began to fall from the sky. The other cruisers began opening fire as Herrig charged into the cruiser closest to him and ripped into the windshield with relish, and it's passengers bloodily and shortly after. Allenes watched ths with indifference before raising both hands and letting aetheric tendrils of energy reach out and entangle two cruisers before cruelly smashing the two together with the malicious glee of a child crashing his toy cars together.

The weapons of the Gotham Police had little effect on the Astartes thick battle plate but even such low caliber weaponry could take it's toll. Sothil crippled two more vehicles before ordering a retreat to his brothers, who melted into the night as he held back. Terry made to give chase but saw the police cruisers begin falling dangerously towards the people below, and made for the Batmobile. Punching the buttons on the console before him, fired 3 hooks into the falling cruisers and hit the afterburners trying to keep them afloat. "Come on you hunk of junk." Terry growled through grit teeth, "we can do this, just.. gotta…hold ..on!" Terry fired two more grappling hooks into the buildings to his left and right, giving the batmoblie just enough hold to lower the vehicles safely to the ground in the middle of the excited crowd below.

Terry opened the hatch and looked up, to see the leader of the giants looking down at him, Sothil adjusted his vox amplifier to full and gave a mechanical roar, "We are the Night Lords! We shall have your fear, or we shall take your souls, challenger, your skull shall adorn my armor soon enough! We shall meet again!" and with that, Sothil, Lord of the Night, melted into shadow.

"Why do I always get the crazies on my weekends?" muttered Terry as he flew back to the Bat Cave to deal with his injuries.


	4. Chapter 4

I do not obtain any monetary gain from Warhammer 40k or Batman Beyond, neither do I own them, I merely seek to do tribute

Back at the Bat Cave, Terry leaned against the supercomputer and stretched his sore neck, as Bruce looked over the camera footage he'd pieced together from the Batmobile's camera and nearby surveillance equipment. Terry had tried to hunt down the perpetrators responsible for tonight's attack but had come up empty. Whoever these behemoths were, they knew how not to be found when they didn't want to be. "What's with the green thing?" Terry asked as Wayne went back over it's grisly and almost humorous decapitation, "I have no idea," was his reply as he zoomed in on the corpse" but, looking at all of the fetishes and trinkets this thing has on it, along with it's appearance, I can easily say it's not natural. Somewhat reminds me of Etrigan…."

This perked Terry's interest as he groaned in despair, "Not him again! I had enough fun with him running around last Halloween! Besides, he dies way too easy to be some demon, and the guys who plop in after him have way too much tech-gear to be like him." Terry stopped to watch the one with robes whip out his energy whips to smash the cruisers together and cackle, "Except maybe that one." he mused and rubbed his shoulder where the pistol had singed him.

"Demons and wannabe wizards are often found in the same places Terry." Wayne said as he focused the screen on the giant with the winged helmet. "Their boss looks like the biggest threat." Said Wayne. Remembering the threats from earlier, McGinnis narrowed his eyes and stood straight. "Bruce, come on, these guys are like 7 feet tall, their mothers were tanks, their dads probably chased down Englishmen, they toss around magic, and have medieval weapons from hell. What makes this guy the bigger threat?" With a sigh of patient exasperation, the previous batman explained to his young counterpart, "Look at how the others act towards him, like wolves going on their bellies before their alpha male, neither of the other two look him in the eyes, when he steps forward they stay one step behind him. We've seen what his henchmen do, fly with oversized claws and use strange powers, but all he does is look in their direction and they stand attention. Leaders are leaders for a reason Terry."

McGinnis took all of this in and nodded. "All right old man, I get the hint, but what do we do? I punched one in his wounded side and I'm pretty sure I felt more pain than him. The guy was like a steel wall." Standing and stretching Bruce Wayne yawned and began to head up the stairs to his mansion replying, "They've gone to ground for the night, most likely going to try learning more about their new surroundings before trying anything else, you go home and rest, I'll see what I can do to learn of our new guests."

Finding shelter in an abandoned apartment building's sub-garage, there Herrig, perched on a large dumpster like a gargoyle, staring at Allenes' wounds hungrily, and the sounds of his tongue running over his teeth could be heard over their vox-link. **Shink shlun sshishk "**What's that you're saying brother?" Allenes snapped, his hand straying to his plasma pistol. "Your tongue is caught on your teeth and you want me to loosen it? Just give me a second to aim at that disgusting maw of yours." Herrig chuckled and rhythmically tapped his claws on the graffiti-covered dumpster as he teased the throttle on his jet engines.

"Calm yourselves, brothers." Came Sothil's soft growl, "Allenes, tell me, where did your little portal take us? I've yet to see any of the corpse god's marks on this world and from their looks of horror; they have no idea what an Astartes is." Sothil sat on a pile of fallen concrete, cleaning his pistol with a rag he'd ripped off one of his recent victims. The group hadn't taken his orders to "disperse and live" seriously and had to kill three before they did. They reminded him of the riotously colored harlequin elder he'd fought after the legion had dispersed after Tsagualsa.

Allenes straightened up and deferred to his lord, "I am not sure, I think that when that blasted greenskin tried to escape into it's 'big green', it reacted exdentently with my attempts to hold him there." Seeing the blank looks of his brothers, the sorcerer withdrew his blade and began to scratch into the decaying plaster wall, "Imagine it this way, the ork's spell tried to pull him somewhere else, but my etheric bindings were holding him back, although somewhat elastically, and the backlash threw us the opposite way, the warp being the splinter-minding mistress it is, threw us with as much care as a bored child with a rock at a pond, we've sunk somewhere unknown, undiscovered, and untouched."

Herrig looked at the scratchings and snorted, "Lotta words for just being shoved in a slingshot from hell." Sothil rose and walked closer and mused over the diagram. "This can work" The Chaos lord turned and gazed up through a window looking up at the city above, "A new world, unspoiled, unknowing of the true horrors around it. Pristine, and blissfully ignorant. It must be enlightened. How would we bring the rest of the legion here?"

"Impossible lord." Allenes stated flatly, "I can sense no astropaths or enough psychic energy to move a pebble on this planet." "The ork had a heap of moss for brains and he could do it, why not the all powerful Aleenes? The raptor sniggered at it's own jokes. Allenes stared at the creature like it had sprouted scales, a second head and called him a grox lover. "The head… Bring me the head, and we may have a chance."

Outside, the sounds of motorcycles and mocking laughter rose up. Apparently the local harlequin worshippers did not take kindly to the slaughter of their comrades-in-rags. Sothil clicked home a fresh magazine in his pistol and began walking to the garage's entrance. "What about their heads?" he called over his shoulder. Allenes readied his own pistol as Herrig crawled after their lord. "You can never have too many spares lying around my lord"


End file.
